166 



GENESEE FARMER. 



July. 



ditches. As much water falls in a shower of 

 twenty minutes duration here, as in an hour in 

 New York. On light, loose, hoed land, in corn 

 and cotton, these heavy rains wash off soil some- 

 times by the acre on '=ide hills, if not prolecled 

 by horizontal ditches. These ditches have a fall 

 of one inch in twelve feet ; at least, this is the 

 fall preferred by Dr. Towns, who has construct- 

 ed miles of these safeguards on his plantation, 

 which joins that of Gen. McDuffie. These 

 excavations are open and well set in grass to 

 protect them from washing. Sometimes the 

 rows of corn or cotton terminate at these 

 ditches, and at others they run parallel with 

 them, round the hill-side to be protected. It is 

 from three to eight rods from one ditch to anoth- 

 er, as the surface is steep or more level 



Subsoiling is just coming into favor and prac- 

 tice in this part of the Union. Dr. Broyles, of 

 Pendleton District, has invented a sub-soil plow, 

 which is sold at $S, that at a trial with one of 

 the Boston implements of the kind, was reported 

 by a committee to be superior to the latter. 



Neat cattle are better in Abbeville than any 

 we have seen south of it, except a few choice 

 cows in this city. Common cows nowhere 

 give more than from one to two quarts of 

 milk at a milking. Stock of all kinds, except 

 working mules and horses, is sadly neglected. 

 Grass is too scarce for sheep to thrive, except 

 when few in number, and enjoying a wide range. 

 The whole country is badly infested* with dogs, 

 which are quite incompatible with sheep hus- 

 bandry. Sheep are never washed, so far as we 

 have seen, and are usually shorn twice a year, 

 to prevent the briars and bushes pulling off all 

 their wool. Instead of altering male pigs and 

 calves, the females are spayed to prevent the 

 undue increase of the two races. If grass for 

 feed can be cheaply grown in the Southern At- 

 lantic Slates, (of which we are still in doubt.,) 

 this can be made a superior stock-raisingcountry. 

 At present, (10th of June,) cattle are poor, and 

 many have not shed their coats. Indeed, not 

 one animal in a hundred has enough to eat. 

 Short commons have dwarfed them down to 

 about one-third the size of northern cattle. 



All cultivated crops not already harvested, 

 look well. Peas are up on land sown since 

 wheat was harvested, in May. These peas will 

 come off in season to seed with oats, barley, rye 

 or wheat in autumn of this year. Figs are ripe ; 

 and early peaches will be by the 20th of this 

 month. The wool or cotton aphis exists on all 

 the apple trees of the South, that we have seen, 

 and causes ugly looking, black excrescences or 

 warts. Pears, plums, cherries, currants and 

 goosberries do not flourish in this climate. Even 

 grapes are scarce and poor, judging from the ap- 

 pearance of the vines in the oldeat and richest 

 settlements. Wild plums and blackberries a- 



bound over the whole country, and are held in 

 high esteem to feed hogs. 



Military musters are held in higher regard, 

 and oftener occur in South Carolina than in any 

 other state in the Union. Her chivalry has sus- 

 tained terrible losses in the Mexican war. Ill 

 almost every family we visited in the state, its 

 meoibers were in mourning for the loss of a 

 brother or father. At the time our agricultural 

 address was delivered in the Court House at 

 Abbeville, a meeting was held to erect a suitable 

 marble monument in honor of a jjartly slaughter- 

 ed company of fine young gentlemen — the sons 

 of old and wealthy families of the vicinage. 

 When will the time for " beating spears into 

 pruning hooks and swords into plow-shares," ar- 

 rive in this nation of farmers? When will the 

 cultivators of American soil instruct their repre- 

 sentatives in Congress to vote one dollar to teach 

 the arts of peace, and the science of agriculture 

 to the young men of the republic, where they 

 nov/ vote thousands to instruct them in the art of 

 shedding human blood by violence, or the science 

 of war ? 



Avgusta,'Ga., June, 1848. 



Hints for July. 



If your corn is all hoed out and plastered and 

 ashed, your cabbages set, gardens wed, and all 

 the lions killed that are in the way of the great 

 battle with the hay and grain — then we say, take 

 off those coats and on with the frocks. Rob old 

 Time of his scythe and hour-glass, and let him 

 take a nooning of a few days this hot weather, 

 while you try your hand at " mowing down all, 

 both great and small," with his keen and un- 

 flinching instrument. 



See that all the scythes, forks, rakes, hay rig- 

 ging, rubbers, &c., are in order, and ready 

 for the conflict. "Make hay while the sun 

 shines," is old, but true and judicious advice. 

 One load of hay quickly and thoroughly cured, 

 is worth a whole prairie of dew-rotted, rain-soak- 

 ed and sun-bleached trash. 



Cut your June and wild grasses early, even 

 before clover, if you desire to have it worth any 

 thing. Clover hay must also be cut early, or 

 when the last sets are in blossom, and the first 

 ones a little turned ; and observe one well estab- 

 lished principle, that if that cut in the forenoon 

 is not cured sufficiently to fake in the same day, 

 that as soon as it is fairly wilted it should be put 

 up in cocks of 75 or 100 lbs., and left from 

 three to four days ; and on a fine sunny morn- 

 ing open it and by ten o'clock it is ready to load. 

 By this process the leaves and blossoms are pre- 

 served in a fine fragrant state — the real old hyson 

 — and not t'ne black, tasteless, bean-stalks and 

 hop-vines of the old process. If you have any 

 fears that the hay is too green when taken in, 



